Ole Miss’ Hugh Freeze quits; escort-service calls cited

Ole Miss football coach Hugh Freeze resigned effectively immediately on Thursday night, with the Rebels’ athletic director telling ESPN that university officials found a "troubling" pattern of calls on a university-issued phone to a number associated with a female escort service.

Assistant head coach Matt Luke, in his sixth season as co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach, has been named interim head coach.

Ole Miss AD Ross Bjork told ESPN that once the university officials dove deeper into Freeze’s phone records, going back as far as shortly after he was hired in 2012, they started finding more of a pattern with phone calls of the nature USA Today earlier reported.

"Once we looked at the rest of the phone records we found a pattern," Bjork told ESPN. "It was troubling."

Bjork, in a Thursday night news conference announcing the move, called it a "sad" and "unexpected" day for Ole Miss.

Bjork wouldn’t say how many phone calls were made to numbers similar to the one made to the female escort service or how far back the phone calls went. He also said that not all of them were connected to different escort services like the one in the USA Today report, but that they were similar in nature.

The news comes a week after Freeze addressed speculation about his job future at SEC media days and about six weeks before the Rebels kick off the season against South Alabama.

USA Today reported Thursday that Freeze made a one-minute call from a university-issued phone to a number associated with a female escort service. The number was found during discovery related to former Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt’s civil lawsuit against Ole Miss and Freeze, which was filed in federal court last week.

ESPN asked Freeze about the alleged phone call last week, and he denied purposely calling an escort service.

According to emails obtained by USA Today, Nutt’s attorney, Thomas Mars, sent an email to Ole Miss general counsel Lee Tyner, which referenced a "phone call Coach Freeze made that would be highly embarrassing for all of you and extremely difficult to explain."

USA Today reported Freeze resigned only hours after the university said it would provide a statement regarding the phone call. The report said the call was made on Jan. 19, 2016 to a 313 area code number and lasted only one minute. The USA Today report said the number is associated with Web sites that advertise a female escort business based in Tampa, Florida.

Freeze about than $2 million left on his contract for this year, $5 million next year and $5.15 million for the 2019 season.

In six seasons, Freeze guided the Rebels to unprecedented heights, but his success was also sullied by an ongoing NCAA investigation. In February, the school self-imposed a one-year bowl ban for the 2017 season, after it received a new NCAA notice of allegations that accused the school of lack of institutional control and Freeze of failure to monitor his coaching staff.

The notice of allegations included eight new alleged rules violations and the lack of institutional control charge. The NCAA has now accused the Rebels of 21 rules violations by current or former members of their football coaching staff. Ole Miss agreed to forfeit its share of SEC postseason revenues for this coming season, which could be as much as $7.8 million, after it had already self-imposed a double-digit reduction in scholarships for football in May 2016 as part of its response to an NCAA notice of allegations it received in January 2016.

Freeze, 47, had a 39-25 record in six seasons with the Rebels, including a 19-21 mark against SEC foes. After going 10-3 in 2016, Ole Miss slipped to 5-7 this past season.

Among other charges, the NCAA accused the Rebels of providing improper benefits, including cash payments and merchandise, to prospects, as well as lodging and meals to recruits and their families. Freeze probably faced a multi-game suspension this coming season if he were found guilty of failing to monitor his staff.

The Rebels are expected to appear before the NCAA Committee on Infractions in Indianapolis later this summer, possibly in September.

Last week, former Rebels coach Houston Nutt sued Freeze and Ole Miss in federal court, accusing him and the university of orchestrating a smear campaign against him.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Oxford, alleges that Freeze and other school officials created a "false narrative" in an effort to place primary blame on Nutt for the NCAA’s ongoing investigation.

Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said he will continue to fight the NCAA’s charge of failure to monitor his staff and called it a "remarkable opportunity" to lead in a "difficult time."

The suit leveled its harshest allegations at Freeze, alleging that he conducted off-the-record conversations with sports journalists as part of a "smear campaign."

The lawsuit says that it "is common knowledge among sports journalists that Coach Freeze does not take kindly to criticism." It also characterizes Freeze as "consistently exhibiting behaviors that are massively defensive," "going to extraordinary lengths through social media and otherwise to promote his self-image as a deeply spiritual Godly man who’s done nothing wrong and is being persecuted," and "attempting to cultivate personal relationships with sports journalists for the purpose of promoting his self-image through positive news stories."

At SEC media days, Freeze chose not to comment on Nutt, who accused him and the university of orchestrating a smear campaign against him, but said that he was "disappointed by the timing of it" coming one day before he and his players arrived in Hoover, Alabama, for SEC media days.

"This is the fifth year in a row I’ve been here and I can’t talk about our players," Freeze said, wanting to turn the focus away from off-field issues. Freeze said he took responsibility for the ongoing NCAA investigation into the program, pointing out how the school self-imposed scholarship limitations and a bowl ban.

"It’s a lot we inherited and caused in some cases," Freeze said, alluding to the previous coaching staff.

After inheriting a team that won only two games in 2011 and had lost 14 consecutive SEC contests, Freeze guided the Rebels to four straight bowl games in his first four years — the first Ole Miss coach to do it. Ole Miss was one of only five FBS programs in the country to make consecutive New Year’s Six bowl appearances in the first two years of the College Football Playoff.